Guess what the most popular OS (Operating System) is right now? Windows? Mac? Nope. It’s Android. Check out this article from Techcrunch for the details.

Ok – if you read the article, the stats are really counting usage instead of users, but still.

After you read the article, think about this – are your staff trained in the basics of all the popular OSs (as in Windows, Android, Apple’s OS X and iOS)? They certainly don’t have to be experts in the inner workings of each OS.

The point? We need to help our customers connect to the library, regardless of OS or device. There are differences, and we should understand what they are, and how to navigate them. So that means we might need to do some basic “here’s how all the OSs work” training.

There might be other things that would be good to know for each OS in relation to the library. What do you think? Or – do you already train staff this way? Please share!

I just read an article about the Internet of Things overtaking mobile devices. Thanks to Michael Schofield for posting it (you ARE listening to the lib.ux podcast he does with Amanda Goodman, right?).

Anyway … here’s the article. The article states that “the Internet of Things (IoT) is set to overtake mobile phones as the largest category of connected device by 2018.”

I can believe that. Thinking about my own family’s devices, we’re close to that already! Here’s what we own that would relate to mobile devices and the Internet of Things at the moment (not counting our computers):

3 mobile phones

1 tablet

1 Tile (a Bluetooth tracking device, for keys and other things that get easily misplaced)

If you’re making video for social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, or Vine, you might think about using a square format, rather than the usual 16:9 aspect ratio.

Why? Because square format videos work great on a mobile device – which is probably what your viewers will be using. And both Instagram and Vine use the square format for videos.

Here are some tips to make your square videos awesome:

Fill the frame. Get up close to your subject. If your viewer is watching on a smartphone, that square video will be pretty tiny! Make sure your viewer can see your video.

Center the content. Don’t worry so much about that Rule of Thirds here. Go ahead and put your subject in the middle of the frame.

Leave space on the edges. If you hold your smartphone vertically while creating your video, leave space at the top or bottom, so you can center in on the action that will show up in a square format. Same thing if you hold the phone horizontally – leave space at the edges, so your subject fills the frame but doesn’t get edited out in a square format.

Get to the Point. Really important for Instagram or Vine videos – you only have 15 or 6 seconds, so you will need to start right in on the action and your point!